Homemade Macaroni

One of my super awesome wedding shower gifts was the pasta roller and cutter attachments to the Kitchenaid mixer, which, despite repeated insistence to myself that I would break it open any day now, has sat sadly in its box for 6 embarrassing months. 

This Sunday I finally decided to try my hand at homemade macaroni, so my shiny new attachments got to show off their stuff. 

Roasted Butternut Chowder with Apples and Bacon

Perfect Autumn recipe, Mark Bittman's Roasted Butternut Chowder with Apples and Bacon.

Creamy Tomato Basil Pasta

Tomatoes + cream = <3

What is it about the combination of tomatoes and something creamy that makes me so happy? Tomato mayo sandwiches in late summer are perfection. And I've invented a ketchup-mayo condiment (Tomayo) that I'm going to bottle and sell some day that's awesome for dipping fries in.

So when I came across this recipe for Creamy Tomato Pasta from Kitchen Trial and Error, I had to try it. It was actually the first tomato sauce I've made from fresh instead of canned tomatoes.

Stuffed Grape Leaves

I <3 olive oil. I can't live without it. Take away butter, cake, even my carbs if you have to, but for the love of food, please leave me my olive oil.

If there were ever a diet I could do, which there isn't, but if there were, it would be the Mediterranean diet, since it's the only one that seems to have the reverence-bordering-on-cultism for olive oil that I have.

This month's Daring Cooks challenge, stuffed grape leaves, fit right into my pro-olive oil agenda. Our October 2010 hostess, Lori of Lori’s Lipsmacking Goodness, has challenged The Daring Cooks to stuff grape leaves. Lori chose a recipe from Aromas of Aleppo and a recipe from The New Book of Middle Eastern Food. I'd never really been a huge fan of stuffed grape leaves, but I'd only tried them twice. I really liked these ones, though (I chose the Wara Einab - cold stuffed grape leaves), so I think I'll keep trying them some more.